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Photo radar could help slam brakes on police spending: Keenan

Return of the once-loathed eyes on drivers would do more than make streets safer, writes Edward Keenan.

Photo radar systems, such as this one -- including an LED screen cautioning drivers -- seen in Brampton in 2006, were unpopular in years past. However, Edward Keenan suggests times have changed. (Carlos Osorio / The Toronto Star)

Photo radar, huh? Well, this is a surprise. But a pleasant one, really.

Bring it on.

It’s a surprise because Mayor John Tory, who announced he’d be asking the premier for changes to allow technological changes to police enforcement of traffic rules — including photo radar, “especially in school zones” — has previously shown no inclination to do anything that might anger drivers. He’s spared no expense to speed up construction, tow lane-blockers, keep the Gardiner Expressway intact — at every turn he’s shown his determination to keep his campaign promise to make the city a better place to drive in, devotedly kowtowing to a constituency he developed as a “drive time” radio host.

But this is something different. Photo radar, those of us who’ve been around long enough to remember, was one of the nails in the coffin of Bob Rae’s provincial government. A policy so unpopular with drivers that repealing it helped define Mike Harris’ campaign to replace him.

It is thought to be one of those third rails of politics around here (to borrow a transit metaphor to describe the attitudes of those who mostly don’t take transit).

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Or is it? Forum Research did some polling on photo radar in December of last year, and found people have been warming up to the idea since they last asked about it a few years ago. Now, they found, 49 per cent of Torontonians support implementing photo radar, versus only 34 per cent who disapprove (the rest say they don’t know). It certainly appears the mayor may have seen this poll, as it specifically shows big support for photo radar installations in school zones. Fully 60 per cent of John Tory voters in the last election support it. And 57 per cent of those in Etobicoke — the neighbourhood which you’ll remember as the Ford Nation headquarters on the War on the War on the Car.

Maybe it’s not as unpopular as conventional pundit wisdom suggests?

Still, there are those already grumbling that this is a cash grab, pure and simple. (Strangely, that Forum poll shows that people do think it’s a cash grab as much as they think it’s a public safety measure, and they approve of it anyway.) If it is sort of a cash grab, It's not just targeted at the wallets of drivers, but the police department too.

As reticent as he’s been to upset drivers, Tory has thus far stepped even more gingerly around the police department, sparing the force from the tough labour negotiations and the budgetary restraint that’s been applied to virtually every other department. But this request to the premier to make changes to the Highway Traffic Act — which would allow not just photo radar but automatic enforcement of other offences like illegal left turns and blocking intersections during red lights, and would also allow non-police officers to direct traffic at intersections — is specifically pitched as a measure to save money. Under the current rules, only sworn officers may enforce the Highway Traffic Act. That means you need a cop (median salary: more than $100,000 per year) to stand and direct traffic or sit at the side of the road and operate a radar gun. A cop who may also then have to show up in court (where they often rack up overtime fees) waiting to testify if the recipient of a ticket fights it.

Multiple reports have already suggested that using technology and civilians to do such jobs, which don’t require extensive training, investigative skills and firepower to perform, is a key way the force can cut its ballooning budget. It’s likely that the task force Tory recently appointed to study modernizing police will suggest the same thing. This request lays the groundwork to implement such a suggestion.

And unlike many ideas to cut the police budget, this is one the police department brass actually support. Former Chief Bill Blair suggested allowing more technology in traffic enforcement, and specifically photo radar, in discussing possible budget savings in 2013. Police spokesperson Mark Pugash says Chief Mark Saunders has also spoken of the need to use technology in approaching traffic and gridlock as a way to more efficiently use police resources. “Using police officers to do it is expensive and inefficient,” Pugash says of speed traps and enforcement of things like illegal left turns at intersections where no discretion is required. “The chief’s position is technology is more effective and economical and doesn’t make the situation worse” from a public safety perspective.

A traffic enforcement measure a pollster says is fairly widely supported by the general public; a proposal to allow cuts to the police budget that is actually endorsed by the police department; a proposal to actually enforce the laws meant to keep us safe. What’s not to like? There are details to be sorted out (What sort of allowance will be built in to acknowledge the speed of the general flow of traffic? How will we be sure — when it comes to insurance implications and so on — who was driving?) But beyond those details, who’s left to oppose this?

People who want to defend their sacred right to speed past schoolyards without getting caught?

Right.

If a law is worth having, it’s worth enforcing (and if it’s a bad law arbitrarily enforced, the law should be changed). More effective enforcement of traffic safety laws is very likely to make the streets safer. There’s no privacy or other concern at public intersections and streets that somehow make photo surveillance by police departments out of bounds. And police earning six figures a year should be working to fight and solve crime rather than sitting around watching traffic.

Controversy schmontroversy. This is a perfectly sensible request by Mayor Tory. Let’s hope the premier delivers, and the city government follows through.

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